


from cradle to watery grave

by millimallow



Series: the world of owa [29]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 11:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millimallow/pseuds/millimallow
Summary: i've been waiting for such a long time.





	from cradle to watery grave

“can you take care of the candles for me, dear?”

my grandfather is dead, and this is his funeral. his life was long and dignified up until his health began to decline months ago, so when my aunt came to his room and found him quiet and without breath we knew it was his time. he was raised from his birth on the water, brought into the world on a travelling barge which connected the various artificial islands in the northern sea together, and for him to die on the ocean was a fulfillment of his greatest wish at the end of his life.

suddenly i’m a part of the funeral now. for every time previous i’ve been young, needing to be consoled and too clumsy to deal with the delicate preparations of a dead body. now i’m 16 and it feels like the first time i’ve even been to a funeral, with this sudden burden on my shoulder of organizing the ritual rainbow of candles that surround my grandfather’s body on the palette he’ll be sent out to the ocean on. they smell strongly of the sea algae and natural beeswax they’re made from, staining my fingers with scent. when they burn, the scent becomes even more powerful, enough that it reminds me of all the times previous i’ve been to funerals. standing on the docks or the raised wood-and-stone platforms which hoist our people up trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive body. funerals are a social event for us, so it was often someone i didn’t know, or we were just in the area to be privy for the day. but it’s new now, and i know that. it’s the last time i’ll see the man who taught me to fish and sail. it’s over now.

we gather to say the prayers in a private room as a family, overlooking his body. his skin is greyer now, despite the preservation, as we abhor any makeup on the body aside from traditional markings. as if to offset the lack of light in his face, his hair is posthumously dyed bright red, the kind that would rarely be found in nature. and to avoid polluting the ocean his glasses have been removed and set aside. after our group chanting, i hear chatter that they may be given to my cousin’s young daughter. poor eyesight is a curse which i was lucky enough to avoid, but i know that it runs through my family. quiet voices most certainly does not. we are loud together for a while, holding each other and enveloped in our grief before we can let go of both each other and our dearest departed relative.

coria meets me to paint my face. another one of my cousins, i know her well from a lifetime of family events together, though it would be hard to call us friends. she tells me a little about how the bright markings differentiate us from those on ras mara, a line of conversation i try hard to not provoke for fear of sparking nationalist sentiment. it’s not the time- our grandfather cared not one lick about the politique of our patch of ocean. my eyebrows now sky blue, she tells me with excitement of all the different patterns she’ll be able to practice on her child. i remember the swelling of her stomach, how it feels even more prominent now and i resist the urge to tell her that i think her husband’s a bitch who won’t amount to much more than the price of his organs on the black market. even though my grandfather felt the same way.

one of my relatives is missing. we’re all trying to dance around it, or at least not bring it up. at some point it’s futile- we all know through the grapevine and our assumptions about what happened to uncle jai. why he’s no longer at family events, or at any events for that matter. why his daughter and his wife went to live with grandfather, and why his wife (allegedly) ran off to tavanes without so much was saying goodbye. i assume he’s still alive- aniya ghale got rid of the death penalty long ago, even in regards to what he did- though if i was in prison, and i met him, it’d be hard to resist extending my sentence just for a chance to stab him. it’s unfair that he might still be alive. what he did was unspeakable and violent, even if some members of the family were initially sympathetic. nowadays i think they agree, following the court cases and the faces of the victim’s families. in her aging creaky breath my great-aunt curses jai’s soul for what it wrought and her children nod in quietly considered agreement.

perhaps no funeral is fortunate, but september is a fortunate time for a funeral. it’s not too hot, especially not with the sort of heat that can kill during the summer months. and it’s not somber either, allowing for some modicum of celebration for someone’s life. we’re lucky to have a pleasant day for the event considering how much of it takes place outside, and that i’m chosen to be one of the people hoisting grandfather into his watery grave. the palette beneath him is textured with the bumps and grooves of compressed kelp, dried grass and fish scales- things which decay naturally in the water. it feels like him. natural and traditional, even if not always perfect. next to my mother i come to the end of the pier and slide it onto the tides bearing his body and its decorations into the sea, surrounded by my family and my community as the saltwater laps up to touch him as if it were saying-

“come home, our child. we miss you, and we’ve been waiting for so long.”

-and my tear joins the great mother ocean as my mother moves to hug me, her long sleeves brushing against my shoulder when she does.


End file.
